Manual throughput testing in open-air environments can be time consuming, error prone, and not repeatable—a point emphasized by octoScope. To overcome these limitations, the company offers the octoBox wireless testbed and has just released a video on throughput performance testing using the octoBox, which supports MIMO, MU-MIMO (multi-user MIMO), Wave 2 Wi-Fi, LTE-U/LAA (license-assisted access), and other wireless technologies.
The two-chamber octoBox can accommodate an access point and a client. An upper-chamber turntable holds the device under test to enable the test of performance vs. orientation. The reference device, an access point, is connected via coax in the lower chamber.
Between the two chambers is a broadband multipath emulator, which models the multipath behavior of a typical house, implementing IEEE 802.11 Model B. The company notes that one way to look at a multipath model is the power-delay profile, which shows the power level of reflected signals as a function of excess delay, or the impulse response of the channel.
From the multipath emulator, the octoBox radiates over the air to the device under test. Once device connectivity is confirmed, the octoScope throughput script commences automated measurements.
The throughput script controls the device orientation, the path loss, interference (using the iGen interference generator), and a traffic-generation source (using iperf or IxChariot). Devices under test are isolated from external interference and each other, allowing for a controlled and repeatable test environment.
octoScope reports that the testbed is currently being used by SmallNetBuilder for benchmarking.
